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Melissa Langhan, MD, MHS

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Professor of Pediatrics (Emergency Medicine) and Emergency Medicine; Director of Operations, Pediatric Emergency Medicine; Fellowship Director, Pediatric Emergency Medicine; Director of Education, Pediatric Emergency Medicine

Contact Information

Melissa Langhan, MD, MHS

Mailing Address

  • Pediatric Emergency Medicine

    PO Box 208064

    New Haven, CT 06520-8064

    United States

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Yale Medicine

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Research Summary

Dr. Langhan is interested in performing medical education research across specialties. She has also performed clinical research to improve the safety of acutely ill children and develop objective measurements of illness.

Specialized Terms: Pediatric Emergency Medicine; End-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring; Capnography; Acute exacerbations of asthma; Prehospital care; Patient safety; Objective measures of severity

Extensive Research Description

I am currently involved in a variety of medical education research projects. In an effort to improve equity and diversity of our workforce, my work focuses on discovering and mitigating areas of bias in our assessment of trainees and prospective applicants. Along with the fellowship directors in pediatric emergency medicine across the country, I assessed the impact of Covid on fellowship training and recruitment, remediation of trainees, and variations in autonomy across programs. We have evaluated our fellow Milestones, clinical work hours, and levels of autonomy. As a representative on the Subspecialty Pediatric Investigative Network, I help to implement multicenter medical educations studies across all pediatric specialties. Some recent projects include:

  • Linguistic analysis of letters of recommendation to assess for gender and racial bias
  • The impact of Covid on PEM Fellowship training programs
  • Utilization of EPAs in the Pediatric Subspecialties
  • Are Graduating Pediatric Fellows Meeting the Expected Level of Supervision for the Common Subspecialty Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs)?
  • Longitudinal Evaluation of the Required Levels of Supervision for Pediatric Fellows
  • Use of Structured Interviews to Reduce Bias in Trainee Evaluations
  • Perceptions of an ICU rotation on medical student training
  • Readiness for PEM fellowship after pediatric residency training: views from program directors and first year fellows

My academic clinical research career focused on applying new, noninvasive technologies to the clinical problems seen acutely in children by designing and executing carefully planned patient-oriented research. I have been able to successfully complete several research projects using new technologies in the pediatric emergency department such as capnography and portable spirometry. Furthermore, I have been able to document that capnography is not being utilized to its full potential in both the emergency and critical care settings. I now spend time mentoring trainees and junior faculty in their clinical research interests, such as:

  • Use of medical chaperones: the perceptions of adolescents and their caregivers
  • Kawasaki disease and MISC: what are the differences?
  • Gender differences in the Pediatric Emergency Medicine workforce and leadership positions
  • Developing a prediction model to identify children with MISC who will decompensate


Coauthors

Research Interests

Asthma; Carbon Dioxide; Education, Medical; Emergency Medicine; Pediatrics; Bias; Capnography; Patient Safety; Sexual and Gender Minorities; Academic Performance

Selected Publications

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